


How Dragons Came to Wear the Northern Lights

by Senri



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat, just-so story, porquoi story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:47:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/pseuds/Senri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some dragons didn't always have scales that shone, you know; and none of them would but for a clever dragon born long ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Dragons Came to Wear the Northern Lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aedh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aedh/gifts).



Oh, winter nights in wind country grew _cold_ with the _gusting_ , laughing and shrieking of the _relentless_ , chill and scouring wind, fit to put the Icewarder’s chill to shame – kites staked out to fly always broke tether and flew forever until a crash on wind-bursting nights like that. The bamboo flutes hollowed, cut and planted to always sing in time with the wind raised their voices to screaming and snapped before the gale! Even the best of the wind-masters all went to ground, and what was a clan to do, land-locked by ferocious winds even in those least-inclined most-sheltered rising grounds of the zephyr steppes?

Oh, a difficult time to be sure. In one certainmost of clans, all the babies found what they would do quick enough when the gale began: they all tumbled and squeaked into the den of the snapper in charge of keeping them all from snapping off their own tails or breaking off their own heads before they were old enough to be passed on to other clans and no trouble to their sires and dams any longer.

“We’re so bored,” cried a baby tundra, more a puff of fur then a dragon. “We’ve been cooped up for ages!

“I have to practice my flying,” a little imperial tiny enough to be mistaken for a newt still added his complaint.

“It’s going to dry out the outside of my pearl!” a, you guessed it, pearlcatcher child fretted. Always with the pearls, those pearlcatchers.

“Hush, hush, the lot of you,” the snapper boomed above them all, when he’d heard enough of those three and all their friends besides. “Dragonets must needs learn patience. Wherever in the lands you go, one of the days of your life you must wait!”

But because they were young he did take pity, turning around in his smoothed-out hollow, where he rested but didn’t sleep.

“I suppose I could tell you a story.”

“A _story?_ ” many voices cried. Of course, dear reader, you must know that young dragons like young humans all love stories.

“A story,” the snapper confirmed. “More than one, if you don’t wear me out with shouting.”

Dear reader, even those dragonets all got it through their narrow and winged and feathered and horned skulls that he meant them all to be quiet, and in record time they all fell very silent hush-hush at once.

“Listen careful-like,” the snapper said, when he was sure they were all settled in to listen for a good spell. “This story is important to you whippersnappers especially, as most of you are wind brats, and what I tell you now concerns the very own exploits of your very own tricky layabout of a god.” And the snapper winked his purple eyes, first the left, then the right, and carried right along.

**How Dragons Came to Wear the Northern Lights**

Now long and long and long ago what most dragons are today are like was what all dragons were always like. This was so long ago even the longest of Imperials could be remembered to have been hatched newt-sized and the snappers all remembered with the little pebbles were their brothers and sisters. Long ago, very different from what it is like now!

Today on our hides some dragons are striped, and some dragons shine, some sport spots or fingerpainted scales. Some dragons have eyes and stripes on their wings, some dragons grow rocks on their scales! But long and long ago you wouldn’t find a sole singular lonely dragon like that.  
In this day and age in our very own land of wind there lived a dragoness by the name of Rainbow. She was a sizzling sagacious slender spiral, yes, like some of you, in fact-! But lovely in form though she was she did not boast a spot of color to her name. She was named Rainbow only solely and singularly because she liked rainbows, my children, not for her coloration.

One day she was sitting at the border of the lands of wind and the sea and the windsinger himself spied her glimmering form. He flew down from the aether and perched nearby her. “Rainbow,” he called, for in those days the initiates of every god numbered few enough to be known by name each, “why do you look so lonesome and sad? Come fly with me a while.”

She replied, “Lord Windsinger, I feel sad because while the rainbows I can see where surf and sunlight mix are so beautiful, but I can claim none of those colors for my own.”

The Windsinger thought this was in fact sad. “You’re right, Rainbow,” he said. “Wait here. Perhaps I can find you some pretty bauble.”

More for diversion than real care, Windsinger took to the air. Of course he knew all the gods, and of course he was on good terms with them. He flew straightaway to the Gladekeeper’s dominion and perched in one of the great trees that grows from her back. He called her until she woke and explained Rainbow’s situation. “So,” at last he said, “I must ask you for borrowing the fine feathers of some of the birds that live in your trees.”

“The birds are your creatures too,” gentle Gladekeeper said. “In their nests you will find shed feathers, which still may be fine. Perhaps these will please your Rainbow.”

Windsinger winnowed his winding of winding ways into the trees, my children! He blew his breath through every nest and then he flew catching the feathers that stirred up in his breeze, one-two-three, every one neat as that. Straightaway he flew back to Rainbow and presented her with the feathers. “Will these do?”

Rainbow had in her time waiting been doing some thinking. She was not a foolish dragon, so she sighed and made much over the feathers before saying, “Please, Lord Windsinger, they are lovely but not quite enough. Find me something that shines not just with the brights of the birds but with the lights of the sea.”

“Of course, my Rainbow,” the Windsinger, susceptible to flattery as always, said. Straightaway he flew over the oceans, where he should have gone in the first place, as it was closer. “Tidelord!” he called. “Tidelord!” Until the lord of the Sea of a Thousand Currents rose from the depths to address his fellow god.

Straightaway the Windsinger explained all of Rainbow’s situation. “Tidelord,” he said. “I must ask you for borrowing of the shining scales shed by the fish that swarm shoals in your sea, and if you can spare some sea opals, which I know you have in plenty in your palace. Will you help me?”

“The wind feeds my kingdom,” the Tidelord said, for indeed it did, air threading through the water. “I shall throw these things on the beach for you. Collect them and take them to your friend.”

That is just what the Windsinger did. He gathered all these glimmering shining most rare of ocean treasures, and he flew them away to present them to Rainbow.  
Again she sighed and made much much much of their beauty. She crooned over sea opals and pressed shining scales in with her pallids. Then, clever Rainbow said again: “Lord Windsinger, they are beautiful, but they do not glow with the colors of the sun and sunrise. Could you bring me something with these colors?”

“The Flamecaller will have these things,” said the Windsinger, and straightaway he flew away to the lands of fire. He found the Flamecaller in short order and told her all of Rainbow’s sad, lacking, great and despondent story. “I have gathered water opals,” he said. “I must ask you for borrowing now of fire opals, and other treasures – that you wish to spare – as long as they shine with the light of your beautiful fields of magma.”

“Our fire feeds off your air,” said the Flamecaller, after some thought. “Where lava pours in the outer sea, you will find these treasures encrusted in the top layers that harden in the cold water. Ware the steam.”

Windsinger flew to these edges straightaway, and found the promised opals and treasures. At risk to himself he plucked the gems from the steam and raging sea! Then he flew back to Rainbow, and she made much of his treasures and how lovely they were. She spread out the feathers, the water opals and scales, the fire opals and jasper, and exclaimed over how lovely they were – “But Windsinger,” she said at last, “they are not of me. They do not grow of my scales and skin. They cannot be passed to my kin.” And she leaned forward and two tears slid down her muzzle, one from each eye.

“What must I find you, then?” the Windsinger asked, with perhaps a bare touch of weariness.

“Please garb me in the northern lights,” Rainbow said.

Windsinger considered this request. Northern lights were a difficult thing to catch – they hid in the sky, and only came out to play over the Icewarden’s domain. Windsinger got on well with most of his fellow gods, but not so much the Icewarden, who ruled over terrifying and frigid floes and had no great love of winter winds.

“Come with me,” he said at last, “and I will catch you northern lights to wear.” And together the two spirals flew away southwards. Even the storm was no great hardship to pass by, and Rainbow realized she was fortunate to be in company with a god.

They flew over the tossing sea, reaching the fields of ice at last. “Come with me,” the Windsinger said as softly as a breath, rising higher and higher over the snow to where lancets of light needled down from on high. He did not want to ask the Icewarden any favors here. Rainbow followed him obediently, feeling afraid at last in the cold and silence.

Windsinger flew this way and that. Normally the northern lights are impossible to catch, but as a god he had certain advantages and he herded the straying colors towards Rainbow until they held her in a circle of radiant light. “Hurry,” he said, looking this way and that, and Rainbow winged nearer the veils of color when they were, of course, my children, unduly interrupted!

The Icewarden materialized as if out of the moonlight. His pelt was thick and oily to withstand the cold and keep him warm inside, but his eyes were as frigid as a glacier, glowing merciless blue as he looked between the two spirals. “What are you doing in my lands?” he said, “What are you doing with the treasures of my skies?”

“Well,” said the Windsinger with some nervousness. He was known to be a thief amongst his brethren when the fancy struck him, at times, and he didn’t wish to cross the lord of the northern lands.

“Making off with my aurora?” the Icewarden said. “Exactly what I would expect from you. Windsinger, I will take these lights out of your hide.” And he opened his great jaws and breathed out an ice cloud that wafted cold, cold from all the long billowing extent of it.

Rainbow took one look, spun her long body into the aurora flaring around her, and darted away back whence she came. The Icewarden, asked to choose between tearing her to quivering bits or dogging his fellow god, merely blew a cruel blast of icy air after her and set for the Windsinger.

The Windsinger _himself_ as the target of this most terrible wrath from the Icewarden had a great deal of a harder time extricating himself from his fellow god’s jaws, but he did follow Rainbow back to the lands of wind eventually, where she was sitting in the same place where she always sat, this time not anymore a pallid white wyrm but living up to her name, red at the tip of her muzzle down to violet at the end of her tail.

“Well, Rainbow,” the Windsinger said. “Now you are very lovely indeed. Will you follow me, and come be my Exalt? I am _very_ tired now…”

“My Lord,” she said, feeling the tiniest bit contrite, for poor Windsinger looked battered indeed even if he was in one piece. “Thank you for the many favors you have given me. The treasures you granted me will serve my clan well, but I cannot come and be your Exalt now. I must pass these colors on to my kin, and have many children.”

“Someday, then,” said the Windsinger, and Rainbow bowed her coruscating colorful head to him.

Rainbow had many children, now, and she lived many long days. But one day, after she had many children, and those many children had children, and some of those children also had children, and many of those children also gleamed with the colors of northern lights, she flew away from the breezy dell where she’d made her home, and ushered her glimmering self straight to the center of the Twisting Crescendo. 

She was never seen again, but sometimes it is said that dragons braving the edges of that most fierce, perilous and longlasting storm hear snatches of her laughter carried on the wind.

**The End**

The snapper looked around at the last word, pleased to see some hatchlings with heavy eyes, all of them still and quieted by the story. “And the dragon Rainbow,” he said, “is who those of you who gleam with iridescence may thank for your colors today.”

“Are there other stories like that one?” one dragonet piped up, a young imperial blistered with gleaming red gembond.

“Of course,” the snapper said magnanimously, “including one for you, little fellow. But that is a tale for another time.

For all outside his den, the formerly raging winds had fallen to a hush, as if the Windsinger himself had calmed the storm to creep close and listen to every word of the old story.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Aedh,
> 
> I stared at your prompt for a while biting my lip and sans inspiration, when it came to me that the world of Flight Rising is a bit of a strange one, and dragons probably have all kinds of just-so stories explaining the how and why of it. Humans do, after all; stories like "How the Camel Got His Hump" and "How the Elephant Got His Nose" are just a couple of examples. They're also known as pourquoi stories, or "why" stories (pourquoi is French for "why").
> 
> I don't know what flight you are, or I would have tried to feature that god/dess! Instead I just let the wind take me. I hope you enjoy the one I picked regardless.
> 
> Happy Yuletide!


End file.
